Wednesday, May 16, 2012

My concern is that the way the study is described, it doesn’t mention a control group that did not take sugar. Maybe there was one but it was not mentioned in the article, which is a typical omission. If there was not a control group for sugar, then the only thing they proved is that omega-3 fatty acids are good for learning.

The article quoted below implies that we should not eat more than 3 grams of

omega-3 fatty acids per day, which makes me wonder how much is in canola oil?

From: Trout, Larry

I was about to say college students live on Fructose and Caffeine, but the first paragraph of the article already stole my joke…

Omega 3 risks…

Noncardiac health risks

In a letter published October 31, 2000,[89] the United States Food and Drug Administration Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Office of Nutritional Products, Labeling, and Dietary Supplements noted that known or suspected risks of EPA and DHA consumed in excess of 3 grams per day may include the possibility of:

Subsequent advice from the FDA and national counterparts have permitted health claims associated with heart health.

Cardiac risk

Persons with congestive heart failure, chronic recurrent angina pectoris, or evidence that their heart is receiving insufficient blood flow are advised to talk to their doctors before taking n−3 fatty acids.[90]

In a recent large study, n−3 fatty acids on top of standard heart failure therapy produced a small but statistically significant benefit in terms of mortality and hospitalization.[91] In congestive heart failure, cells that only barely receive enough blood flow become electrically hyperexcitable. This can lead to increased risk of irregular heartbeats, which, in turn, can cause sudden cardiac death. Certain n−3 fatty acids seem to stabilize the rhythm of the heart by effectively preventing these hyperexcitable cells from functioning, thereby reducing the likelihood of sudden cardiac death. For most people, this is beneficial and could account for most of the large reduction in the likelihood of sudden cardiac death. Nevertheless, for people with congestive heart failure, the heart is barely pumping blood well enough to keep them alive. In these patients, n−3 fatty acids may eliminate enough of these few pumping cells that the heart would no longer be able to pump sufficient blood to live, causing an increased, rather than decreased, risk of cardiac death.[90]

My concern is that the way the study is described, it doesn’t mention a control group that did not take sugar. Maybe there was one but it was not mentioned in the article, which is a typical omission. If there was not a control group for sugar, then the only thing they proved is that omega-3 fatty acids are good for learning.